Freud and the Non-European

Using an impressive array of material from literature archaeology and social theory Edward Said explores the profound implications of Freuds Moses and Monotheism for Middle-East politics today. The resulting book reveals Saids abiding interest in Freuds work and its important influence on his own. He proposes that Freuds assumption that Moses was an Egyptian undermines any simple ascription of a pure identity and further that identity itself cannot be thought or worked through without the recognition of the limits inherent in it. Said suggests that such an unresolved nuanced sense of identity might if embodied in political reality have formed or might still form the basis for a new understanding between Jews and Palestinians. Instead Israels relentless march towards an exclusively Jewish state denies any sense of a more complex inclusive past.